The Ultimate Guide to Choosing Fonts in Canva

Oct 5, 2015

There are dozens of Canva fonts to use to create social media graphics, blog post graphics, even eBooks and resumes! But, which ones are the best fonts? Canva is a great tool for those who don’t have professional design software. One thing that can make a big difference in the design of your graphics is the fonts you choose. (Please note: some fonts mentioned are only available to Canva Pro users.)

Body Text (legibility is important, size 12-14; can move up to SH or H)

Acherus Grotesque

Aileron Regular

Alegreya Sans Regular

Alike

Amicale (Regular)

Arimo

Asap Regular

Bodoni

Cabin Regular

Clear Sans Regular

Droid Serif

Fira Sans Light

HK Grotesk Light

Heebo Regular

Lato

Libra Sans

Libre Baskerville

Lora

Merriweather

Montserrat (Regular)

Noto Sans

Noto Serif

Nunito

Open Sans

Roboto

Vollkorn

Script (use for short headlines; 1-2 words)

Allura

Battery

Benedict

Caitlin

Courgette

Dancing Script

Ghisella

Great Vibes

Grimpt Brush

Holla

Jenthill

Kaushan Script

Kingsman

Lemon Tuesday

Magenta

Nickainley

Parisienne

Playlist Script

Rebel

Scandilover Script

Vintage Moon

Combining fonts

It’s not just choosing the right fonts, but pairing the right fonts together, that will make or break your design. And, pairing fonts can be tricky — why does one serif font work with this heading, and not the other? You want your font choices to be contrasting in nature. If you’re using Oswald, you don’t want to use Archivo Narrow — both are narrow in nature. It also depends on your brand and your message — what will work for a toy store will not be the same as a western themed restaurant.

Fonts to Avoid

You probably noticed there are some fonts on Canva that were not mentioned in this post. The other fonts that have been left out so far fall into two categories: use sparingly, and only for certain situations; and do not use, ever. These fonts are on this list because they are illegible, overused, or just plain ugly. Here are the fonts I would avoid using:

Note: This entire blog post is meant for BUSINESS owners. If you’re designing something for fun, one of the fonts below might be a good fit for you, even if I’m saying it’s not good for a business.

Decorative fonts

Abang

Akron Shades NBP

Allerta Stencil

Anonymous Pro

Any of the “Small Caps” fonts

Apple Juice

Aseina

Badger

Bicubik

Black Ops One

Bowl Shadow

Butcherman Caps

Cabin Sketch

Camo Dirt

Canda Tawa Cute

Casa Stencil

Cody Star

Crushed

Creepster

Dagerotypos

Efour Digital Pro

Emily’s Candy

Farmer Market

Finger Paint

Forma

GeoMath

Germania One

Ghisella Two

Glass Antiqua

Graduate

Hitchcut

Hellprint

Janmeid

Limelight

LJ Studios MB

Londrina

Maldina Block

Megrim

Monoton

OpenDyslexic

Pirou

Ribeye

Rye

Sabang Island

Sifonn Outline

Special Elite

Sunday

UnifrakturMaguntia

VT323

Script, or handwriting fonts

Abys

Architect’s Daughter

Beach Resort

Berkshire Swash

Blowing

Bristol

Bryndan Write

Carlitos

Chewy

Coming Soon

Crafty Girls

Dr. Sugiyama

Gochi Hand

Hanging

Jelly Cream

Knewave

Lobster

Mr. Dafoe

Niconne

Over the Rainbow

Princess Sofia

Rosita

Schoolbell

Shadows into Light

Sniglet

Special Elite

Sunday

Vampiro One

Xplor

Waterlily

Yellowtail

Using the right fonts at the right time is one way to level up the look of your graphics. Just remember:

You always want to maintain legibility, because if no one can read your stuff, you’ve just wasted your time designing.

Use brand appropriate fonts. If you have a style guide, adhere to it. If you don’t have one, create one. Choose fonts that reflect your brand personality.

13 Comments

Karen Grosz
on October 5, 2015 at 1:34 pm

Thank you for this. I will use your suggestions the next time I create a inspiration piece or title a picture for my blog. I continue to struggle with fonts and your guide is helpful. I especially love the ideas for combining fonts.

You know me – I’m the worst at font pairings, because I just don’t have an eye for them. I printed this out and am keeping it by my desk for handy reference. I’ll still probably ask you to look over everything for me, though.. ha. 😛

Instead of using those fonts, I would probably use something like Kite. But, when using two fonts, you (usually) don’t want to mix two of the same type. Shadows into Light and Schoolbell are both hand-writing fonts, so if you want to use one of them, then use a serif or sans-serif font with it!

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